


Come Back Inside

by fadedskylines



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Cheating, Infidelity, M/M, Ryan's POV, Ryden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-23 23:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1583180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadedskylines/pseuds/fadedskylines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I close my eyes and watch my eyelids burn red to pitch black. I'm in Nevada. I'm in L.A. I'm in New York. I'm dying in Chicago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Back Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Triggers are in the tags. Nothing's too graphic, though. As always, thanks for reading!

I close my eyes and watch my eyelids burn red to pitch black. I'm in Nevada. I'm in L.A. I'm in New York. I'm dying in Chicago.

I open my eyes and he's still here; he's watching me and asking me if I'm okay. And I'm not. But he thinks I am, he thinks I'm just fine. He says I need some fresh air. I nod, like I actually agree, and leave him alone on the couch.

I press my back against the door and watch the Sun set below my feet. I don't want to look at him again; I don't want to think about how he'll watch the clock tick hours across the empty room and wait for me to come back inside, like he always believes I'm going to come back inside, like he always knows he's right. My heels dig into the rough doormat until they're bruised and red.

He's still alone on the couch.

* * *

 

I hated Las Vegas. Brendon hated it too, and with this common hatred, we vandalized the outer layers of casinos and tossed empty glass bottles against the dusty asphalt roads. We watched cars run over the shattered pieces and laughed until our knees gave out when the tires finally deflated. Then, we'd run and run and run with our spraypaint cans clunking against each other. It was beautiful. It was fun. The desert finally felt like it was behind us.

One day, his mother looked out her window and saw us breaking glass bottles. Me, Ryan Ross, no good, rebel kid and her lovely mormon son; us, deflating tires and causing ruckus in the most insignificant suburb of the most insignificant city.

"Brendon," she'd said, "don't do that! You too, Ryan! I'll tell your father!"

Those bottles were my old man's, anyways.

Eventually, Brendon and I upgraded to full cases of vulnerable wine bottles and equally vulnerable Fremont street. We were supposed to be in 3rd period, reciting Spanish vocabulary to each other and solving algebraic equations-but we weren't. And it felt good, to not do what you're supposed to.

I opened the first wine bottle and took a sip. Brendon gasped and looked on in awe, grabbing the bottle from my lips and hesitantly trying some himself.

"Are your sure your Dad won't be angry?" He asked.

I shrugged. "He has a whole bunch of these cases in the basement. He won't miss one." I drank more, a whole gulp.

Then Brendon drank more, his cheeks red and his brow heavy with sweat. The Sun had suddenly dissapeared, but we kept drinking. My stomach was heavy, somersaulting until I finally threw up on the dirty concrete.

"I think we're drunk," he suggested after vomiting twice.

"And?" I asked.

He opened his mouth to answer, but then someone came into the alleyway. They yelled at us, but I couldn't understand anything they were saying. Then there was a sharp _click_ and I felt something sharp pressing against my stomach. Brendon yelled, and then they yelled, and I didn't say anything. My tongue felt too big for my mouth. Brendon suddenly laced his fingers in mine when I realized it was a knife that was slowly pushing into me.

It hurt more than anything I'd ever felt.

I screamed, and Brendon cried. The police showed up a few seconds later and carried me into an ambulance.

The blood was gushing out onto my hand and I couldn't do anything.

* * *

 

I woke up in a blank hospital room, surrounded on all sides by nurses and doctors. They were all staring holes at me, poking me and prodding me to make sure that I was actually alive. A doctor scribbled something down on some paper and leaned down to look me in my eyes.

"Do you know where you are?" She asked.

I opened my mouth and nothing came out, so I cleared my throat and croaked out a "no."

"Do you know your name?" She continued.

"Ryan Ross." I replied.

"Do you know what year it is?" She looked desperate.

"2001." That was easy.

It was easy and right, until she'd shook her head and gripped my shoulder tight. "It's 2002."

I sat upright in my seat. A nurse rushed to my side and begged me to lay back down, but I wouldn't.

"What do you mean it's 2002?" I asked.

The doctor wrote something else down. "You've been in a coma for a year, Ryan."

And no one was happy that I was finally awake?

She let someone in, and I thanked God that it was Brendon.

"Brendon!" I reached for his arm. "What happened? How long was I out? Where's my dad?"

Brendon held my wrist and looked me straight in the eye. He was frowning. "I'm sorry, Ry."

"Sorry about what?" I felt tears prick the corner of my eye. I already knew.

"He's gone." Brendon murmured. "He died a few months after you went in the coma."

I refused to let the tears fall. I wasn't sad. I was angry. "Was it an overdose?" I whispered.

Brendon furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"

"Was it an overdose? Did he finally drink all the damn wine in the basement? Did he break one of the bottles on his stomach?" I screamed. Both the doctor and the nurse hurried to leave the room.

Brendon nodded, and I fell apart.

He sat beside me on the bed and cradled me in his arms. He wouldn't let go until I felt okay.

And I never did.

* * *

 

I graduated late, and with the small amount of money my Dad had left me in his will, Brendon and I moved to Los Angeles. The beaches were bright and the air was easier to breathe. Brendon would hold my hand when I fell asleep at night, and I would hold his when he woke up in the morning.

We'd never verbally said anything about our relationship, if it even was a relationship. But Brendon still looked at me like he'd never seen anything else and I'd look at him with that same feeling, and we'd both just know whatever there was to know.

* * *

 

Years later, I was reaching the age of 22. I still held Brendon's hand-that never changed. But I grew tired of sand and palm trees and I knew we had to move before the heat drove me insane.

We took a roadtrip across the country, not sure of our destination. But California faded away, and so did Nevada, until we'd finally stopped in New York.

The big apple.

When we pulled into the cheapest hotel we could find, I glanced at the passenger's seat and couldn't take my eyes off of him. The city lights barely illuminated his face, and the wind wafting in through the window softly ruffled his hair.

I leaned over and kissed him hard. I didn't know how to tell him how much I loved him, or to ask him how he put up with me for so many years.

But he just knew when he looked into my eyes again, and held my hand.

* * *

 

The city that never slept exhausted me all too quickly. Brendon was a little skeptical about leaving, but he drove the whole way back anyways. Somewhere in Indiana, we stopped at a gas station while I glanced over our road map.

"Chicago." I suggested. "We can stay in Chicago."

"I know some people in Chicago. We can stay with them," he added.

It was settled.

Our future, our fate, it all locked into place.

I wish I had known.

* * *

 

"Some people" turned out to be an underground band under the name "Fall Out Boy." Their shared apartment was much too small for four people, let alone six. I shared a small bed with Brendon, but some nights, he just wasn't beside me.

I never asked him where he went. I just pretended I was still asleep while I felt him roll out of bed and pull some pants on. The door would softly _click_ and I'd be alone.

When he came back, I'd hold his hand and slowly squeeze it, hoping he'd just know.

One morning, he rolled back into bed and I whispered an "I love you" in his ear.

He pretended to be asleep.

* * *

 

I followed him.

I looked out of our room and watched him open the door to another one. I prayed it was the bathroom.

*

I walked past the room the following day and watched Pete emerge from it.

*

"I need to go outside for a bit." I said.

Joe was fixing his hair in the mirror in the corner of the room. Patrick was dicking around on a guitar by the window. Andy was wiping the kitchen counter. Pete was on the couch across from us, staring at the TV and taking not-so-subtle glances at Brendon.

But everyone stopped and looked at me.

I cleared my throat and walked away.

The summer air hit my hard and I felt myself slipping away. I didn't want to go back inside. I didn't want to sit next to him and feel his infidelity seeping into the couch. I didn't want to watch Pete lick his lips and look at Brendon, and I silently swore to God if he ever looked at him like that again-

I wouldn't do anything.

I couldn't bring myself to do anything.

I watched the Sun sink below my feet and finally realized how Brendon put up with me for all this time.

He just didn't.

I didn't want to go back inside, but I still did.

*

I watched him sneak away again.

And again.

He watched me walk out the door again.

And again.

I watched the Sun set too many times.

* * *

 

The Sun has sunk well below my feet, and my heels are still bright red and aching. I know he's on the couch.

We were home alone.

Now he's just alone.

I feel betrayed. I've missed an entire year of my life, but I feel like I've missed a decade.

I don't want to go back inside, but I always do. He's always expecting me to run back into his arms, but I won't do it this time.

I slip on the flip flops beside me and start walking. My feet are burning but I won't stop moving. I get further away from that cramped apartment, and closer to freedom. It feels so good to not do what I'm supposed to, and I've missed that feeling so much.

I don't need Brendon by my side.

I watch cars fly past me.

Casinos are in the distance.

I thought the desert was behind me but it's still following me everywhere I go. I've been dragging shattered glass and shattered hearts across the country. I'll never get away from that empty alleyway, and the way I was stabbed, the way I missed 2001, the way Brendon looked in New York when I kissed him, the way I watched him sneak off to Pete's room-

It's still here, haunting me.

I feel sick.

*

I make my way back to the apartment.

And he's not there.

 


End file.
